christopher de la Torre

The other night I was sitting at a long table in a familiar restaurant in a familiar city, the site of a dear friend’s birthday celebration. A modest occasion, there were about nine of us altogether, engaging in discussions from theater to opera to political scandal and technological horrors. Naturally, as the table divided, I found myself teetering in the middle, political rants resonating on my left, art and aesthetic flowing from my right. The small draft, sucking air through the French doors behind me into the midnight outside was enough to keep me alert but not enough, however, to take my mind from the more pressing issue at hand: the media kit for the magazine. Had it been completed and sent? When would I be able to pass it on to existing and potential contributors? The media kit, as “a resource created by publishers to help prospective ad buyers evaluate advertising opportunities” [1], was something we would need to get the magazine off the ground. After all, I could talk until I was blue in the face about how professionally advantageous the magazine could be, but without cold, hard facts I wouldn’t be any closer to guaranteed interest than if I walked around in the nude with the name of the publication tattooed on my forehead.

It turns out my slight discomfort over the cold air brushing at my back was enough to relent to the conversation in front of me and, feeling like a sadomasochist at an ass-kicking party, I threw myself headlong into the sociopolitical debate that had swallowed the entire left half of the table. Minutes later, a man from Guiana sitting across from me was busy answering my friend’s inquiry as to what he liked about the United States. After replying “the dead presidents,” I mentioned I like the film, attempting to lighten his morbid tone. Because he’d been in the States a mere six years and wasn’t much the film buff, my joke was wasted as he sat, staring me blank in the face. I naturally wondered what he’d come up with for his answer. Great open space wasn’t mentioned, nor was free speech.

Actually, the man seemed to think free speech was a joke in the U.S., using overstatement in the press as an example. Like someone who is outside a snow globe looking in, and thus knows approximately how much sky resides between the church steeple and the edge of the glass atmosphere, he seemed to pierce some kind of fallacy with his eyes. “Hugo Chavez’s brief yet poignant statement against George W,” he said, “is a great example of how we’re constantly inundated with the same information here. What was a brief comment suddenly becomes a tirade in the news. Why must we see and hear this event so much in one day? Why is such overstatement a norm in the media?” Perhaps living in the shadow of globalism blinded him to what we at its epicenter take as implicit truth: while print news is more limited in its circulation, twenty-four hour news networks have to fill every minute of every day to retain good ratings. We all know the bigger the story the more the coverage, regardless of its general worth in the grand scheme of news giving. But how is that worth calculated?

In describing a Western philosophy centered on an ethic of expediency, Steven B. Katz exposes the fanatical sentiment behind the holocaust as a plague communicable through technological and scientific means. “Science and technology embody the ethos of objective detachment and truth, of power and capability, and thus the logical and ethical necessity…for their own existence and use” [2]. Because “progress becomes a virtue at any cost” [2], and “technology is the embodiment of pure expediency” [3], our use of that technology seems to mirror our desires of progress, whether or not they are linked to positive ends. Progress, in this case, may merely refer to achieving a particular goal through whatever means available. To further convolute the issue, the achievement of excellence in activity that is characteristically accompanied by our enjoyment [4] makes it difficult to separate the means from the ends.

Our ethics is now based on the efficiency with which we disseminate information, rather than on the information itself. By providing information that presents the magazine as a viable source of revenue, the media kit is designed to persuade potential advertisers. This information includes such things as demographics and spending power, as well as the editorial content that will retain the interest of those in the demographics. The other rhetorical situation that is created is the need to secure a talented and reliable stable of contributors. they also need to think of the magazine as a viable source of revenue for advertisers, in that their jobs depend upon a strong advertising presence within its pages. Expediency helps to achieve this in a mere four pages, thus creating the “perfect document.”

Using a Nazi document as an example, Katz describes the perfect document as “begin[ning] with what, in recent composition theories and technical writing practices, is known as the problem or ‘purpose statement’ [5]. The media kit begins with a description of “who we are,” reading much like a statement of purpose, perhaps even more than the mission statement itself. By providing a fast, clear, and accurate delivery of information, the magazine caters to many readers who have “a little time and a little guidance.” Not a lot, a little. In this way we can see how the more we see/hear and faster we see/hear it is directly proportional to material gain. Furthermore, “according to J.C. Mathes and D.W. Stevenson, this statement should invoke an assumption or goal shared by the audience…and then introduce a fac that conflicts with that assumption or goal…thereby setting up the problem to be solved” [6].

In the case of the media kit, the problem posed is not explicit, but implicit. A rhetorical situation/need preexists in the form of a void created by what other magazines do not, individually or collectively, offer. Ideally, the audience knows this even before reading the first word. Because of the assumption, the need to set up the problem to be solved is eliminated, thereby expediting the rhetorical effect further. In short, the problem is never stated in the media kit. Rather, information concerning potential readership, spending habits, and planned editorial content delivers the message in a more positive and productive manner — it’s the more expedient way to get to the solution. But when does taking unnecessary information out become manipulative?

It is important that ethical emphasis remain with the quality of the message and its intended effect, rather than with the frequency by which it is administered. Because of twenty-four hour news networks are responsible for filling so many minutes worth of information, it’s important they choose that information based on the quality and outcome of its message, not simply because it is ensured an audience for whatever reason. In the like vein, the worth of a magazine should not be based on its ability to generate revenue alone, but also on the quality of information found between the advertisements. This approach ensures longevity in an industry mired with high turnover.

Work cited in this post

[1] Marketingterms.com
[2] Katz, S. (2003). The Ethic of Expediency: Classical Rhetoric, Technology, and the Holocaust. Professional Writing and Rhetoric: Readings from the Field. Ed. T. Peeples. New York, Longman. 183-201. (p192)
[3] Katz, 194
[4] Katz, 189
[5] Katz, 184
[6] Katz, 184-85